


Inaugural

by VillainVogue



Series: Next Steps [2]
Category: Wonderland: A New Alice - Murphy/Boyd/Wildhorn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brainwashing, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 04:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VillainVogue/pseuds/VillainVogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hat has gone on, as it must. Chloe is not there to wear it. Something is amiss with the Hare, and the new Hatter intends to fix it at all costs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Marker

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of an AU series in which Alice and Jack are both exiled with Madeline. This series is not in chronological order.

The new Hatter slams through the Looking Glass, eager to return home and celebrate her new title in private. Somehow, she retains her balance after crossing (it must be the adrenaline, the constant thrumming in her veins that surges every time she gains the upper hand) and starts her walk through the Tulgey Wood to the Citadel.

Normally, she would have taken the tank, or simply had Morris transport them both, but he left the gathering early (unless he was leaving to plan a surprise for her, she will have to reprimand him later), and she doesn't feel like driving, though it is immensely satisfying to hear the crunching and cracking of the things in her path as she blasts a path through Tulgey. It all grows back quickly, which means she can do it all again in a week or so.

Today, however, it is the small things she wishes to appreciate, she thinks as she quietly grinds a bug into the dust with her boot heel.

She is halfway to the Citadel (an uneventful walk, as the beasts of the Wood know better than to approach by now) when she comes across something wrong.

There is something decidedly _off_ about the clearing ahead. The Hatter wants to know what. She _needs_ to know everything about _everything_. Knowledge is power.

In the middle of the clearing, there are two red roses sitting in front of two small stone slabs, planted upright in the freshly turned earth. A hat is drawn on one, a book on the other. Hatter knows what they are, who they're for, and most importantly, who put them there. She suppresses a sneer.

Two graves, for two bodies who will never be buried. Her predecessor, lost for nearly eight years now in the Land Under Wonderland, and likely (ideally) long dead. And the girl. The little snivelling weakling _brat_ who lost everything in Wonderland, and hadn't been strong enough to take it, had finally lost the only thing she had left: herself.

Why Morris would ever mourn those two, Hatter will never understand. He had _her_ now, and his Hatter should come first, before anyone else.

In fact, she decides, there shouldn't _be_ anyone else for her to come before. She starts to smile, her mind racing in every direction at once before settling on the path with laser-sharp clarity.

Before she continues on her way, she uproots both stones and flattens the roses into the ground with her boots. He won't come back to check on them, his Hatter will make sure of _that_.


	2. Eraser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hatter has plans. She loves fixing broken things almost as much as breaking them in the first place.

"Wasn't it funny, that they all thought I'd been here forever?" She asks him sweetly once the appointment with the Queen has ended and she is safely back in the Citadel. "I wonder if that would've happened for _Chloe_..."

He purses his lips and says nothing. He didn't keep his title for this long by being an idiot.

"I know," She turns to him, looking cross. "That you miss _her_. You shouldn't. You've got me."

He isn't sure, for a moment, which 'her' his new Hatter is talking about. She says the word, he notes, with the same tone of vehement disgust for both.

"You would've become disillusioned with her eventually. You were starting to, that night. That's why you really betrayed her, isn't it? You knew the end was near." With that comment, he knows now who the 'her' is. He should have guessed. The other 'her' was a touchier subject for the both of them.

"You know why I did it, Mel. To save my own skin. Because I'm a selfish bastard." She giggles at this. They both know it's not quite the truth, but it's the truth he's settled on.

"Oh, _Morris_." She wraps her arms around him tightly. "Still grieving, are we? Still feeling broken? I can cheer you up."

"Melanie..." He begins. Her gaze turns cold and she lets go of him abruptly.

"I'd prefer 'Hatter', if you don't mind."

"Yes, of course, _Hatter_." He is quick to amend. There's no telling what she'll do if he is too slow. By far the most volatile and unpredictable Hatter he's had in his long years of service. "I just--"

"No arguments, dearest Morris. Come." She takes his arm and guides him, rather forcibly, to the only room in the Citadel he doesn't want to enter. The site of a loss almost as painful as Madel-- _the previous Hatter_.

"The renovations are all finished. The Machine is almost perfect now." There's a wicked gleam in her eye that he will never get used to seeing. "It's absolutely _beautiful_. I have such plans, my dear Hare. Would you like to hear them?"

He sighs. "Let me guess--We build an army and take over Wonderland? Or no--Do we have the Queen executed? I've seen people try, as you well know, and I've seen them fail _spectacularly_."

"No, and no!" She laughs lightly. "I don't need to be _Queen_. I just need to _rule_. You understand?" There is a brief moment of stillness as she hovers near the Machine expectantly.

He looks blankly back at her. She plunges forward regardless, as she always does. Melanie understands people, but she does not exactly empathize with them. He wonders if she is capable of that.

"The Queen controls Wonderland, so I have to control the Queen! That way, the people still have someone to hate. They need someone to be angry at, or they start actually _thinking_ , and we don't want _that_. So the Queen becomes a puppet, and I the puppeteer."

She has taken his hand, pulling him closer to the mechanical monstrosity in the centre of the room.

"I need to test it one last time, of course, and what better test than to fix all the bad things in your head?" She sounds and looks innocent--she is only barely eighteen, after all--and Morris can almost let himself believe that she is suggesting this because she truly cares, but he knows what lurks underneath.

"Mel, I don't--"

"Don't worry, I know it'll work. And I won't touch any of the good memories, I promise." The girl is all smiles as she straps him in to the device. He should be resisting in more than words, because he knows his new Hatter, and he knows that her definition of good is very different from his. But he _can't_. There is a small voice in his head, growing louder, that thinks perhaps taking the clarity of the past away is the right thing to do.

She leaps up to the controls, beaming down at him. He won't look her in the eye, because what he would see there will frighten him and he will beg and plead his way out of the Machine, and he's not sure if he wants out.

"It doesn't hurt. It's _bliss_." Melanie croons. "Sit back and relax. I'm going to fix you, dearest Morris. You'll never feel sad for _her_ again."

Morris decides he doesn't care which one she's talking about. He closes his eyes as the machinery whirs to life.

Inside his head, he can practically hear the satisfied smirk on his Hatter's face. "You're not going to miss _her_ now," Her voice echoes in his mind, gleeful and triumphant. "I think you really ought to _hate_ my predecessor for all the pain she caused you, all the damage she did. And when we're done here... _You will_."


End file.
